POP REVIEW

POP REVIEW; Lightening Up a Legacy to Make It New

By BEN RATLIFF

Published: July 22, 2000

At certain points along the spectrum of popular music, lightness and sophistication bend to embrace each other. Bossa nova, as well as some of the music it has inspired, is one of those points. It began in the late 1950's as a music of reticence, seriousness and high craftsmanship; less than a decade later, bossa nova had become an instantly recognizable but sloppily applied brand, used in embarrassingly hard-sell ways in the pursuit of the sweet.

Electronic pop is in a curious, excitable phase, and at the moment the only appropriate thing to do with bossa nova's disparate legacy is to take bits from here and there -- the semi-deep and the paper-thin, music for private contemplation and music for fashion-show runways -- and make them collide.

That's what the singer Bebel Gilberto and her collaborators, producers like Amon Tobin and Thievery Corporation, accomplished on ''Tanto Tempo'' (Ziriguiboom/Six Degrees). Performing music from that album at Shine on Monday night, her purring, flirty voice flowed around ghostly, thrice-removed drum samples; Ze Luis nudged in with a hyper-romantic tenor saxophone line; orchestral recordings blended with her guitarist's bossa nova chord voicings.

Ms. Gilberto, the daughter of Joao Gilberto, one of bossa nova's inventors, has made a very shrewd record that can be appreciated actively or passively. One way to understand it is to keep in mind that it's one of the top sellers at Other Music, downtown Manhattan's hard-core hipster record shop, and yet is simultaneously being marketed by the record company to smooth-jazz radio stations, the other side of musical consciousness. (You can imagine some of the album's songs sliding into rotation right next to Sade, which means it's only a matter of time before all smooth jazz becomes rather high-end.)

After she moved from Rio de Janeiro to New York nine years ago, Ms. Gilberto performed in small clubs and restaurants, keeping nostalgists happy with samba and bossa nova oldies, never hitting her stride. With ''Tanto Tempo,'' her change in fortune has been remarkable. Playing to the sold-out crowd at Shine, she sashayed in a red dress, buoyed by the audience's appreciation. Her quartet of New York-based Brazilian jazz musicians played over the album's backing tracks.

The performance didn't get far away from a re-creation of the album. Its overall sound was weightless and semi-electronic, with long stretches built on a single chord; tempos were slow and comfortable, and Ms. Gilberto phrased slowly, not quite whispering, but not straining her voice either. Every so often she offered the crowd a stronger dose of more durable Brazilian song craft, as when she performed a duet with her guitarist on Chico Buarque's ''Samba e Amor.'' But in most respects her show was music of the moment, a night-life accessory and a passing pleasure.

Photo: Bebel Gilberto singing at Shine. (Jack Vartoogian for The New York Times)